From the Sidelines

“It ain’t easy bein’ green.” Or Green. Or Libertarian.

Perhaps Kermit the Frog, someone with reason to be concerned about the environment, was really talking about the frustration of being a supporter of a Green or other third-party candidate during the presidential primaries. While the early primaries may only seem to affect supporters of the major parties’ candidates, they also involve many supporters of third party and independent candidates who are often scrambling to influence and capitalize on the results.

Earlier this month, voters in Iowa attended caucus meetings to select the early leaders for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, as third party and independent candidates remained largely under the radar and out of the public conscious. While the Democratic and Republican conventions are not until August and September respectively, their chosen candidates are quite clear much earlier in the year as a result of primaries and caucuses such as that in Iowa. By contrast, the Green Party will select its candidate at its convention in July, and there are no primaries or caucuses of comparable importance before then.

The Constitution Party will select its candidate at its convention in April and the Libertarians will select their candidate at their convention in May, but you likely won’t read or see much about these in the news, either.

The Iowa caucus is ultimately rather boring for most supporters of third party candidates, as the focus of the media and the public is on the top few major Democratic and Republican candidates. While some were surprised by Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee’s wins in their respective contests, the results have limited immediate impact on third party and independent campaigns at this stage.

This does not mean, however, that supporters of independent candidates were quiet during the caucus, only that their roles were more complicated. Many are actually registered as Democrats and Republicans, and were thus able to participate in the caucus, many supporting “long-shot” candidates such as Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul or Mike Gravel. As part of caucus procedure, supporters of candidates with small shares of the overall support are heavily courted by supporters of more popular candidates.

While the Iowa caucus ultimately marked the end of the road for some major party candidates, such as Democrats Chris Dodd and Joe Biden, it asked as many questions as it answered. For example, some third party supporters have speculated that candidates such as Paul or Kucinich could end up on independent or third party tickets if they do not garner enough early support in contests like that in Iowa.

The results of the Iowa caucus gave Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) early leads in the nomination process, and suggested potential niches and opportunities for third party and independent campaigns to build support. For example, the group Unity08 is aiming to build a bipartisan, independent campaign to compete for the “voters in the middle.” They will choose their candidate and his or her running mate in an online convention in June, but will this first-ever experiment in online candidate selection be a successful demonstration of e-democracy, or will it be a disaster?

Others have suggested that if the Democratic and Republican candidates are polar opposites, an independent candidate such as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg could enter the race, as well. Each of these campaigns has the potential to siphon significant support from both the Democratic and Republican candidates, so eyes from across the political spectrum were watching the Iowa caucus closely. Will American voters be willing to abandon the major parties for a “moderate” candidate such as Bloomberg in large enough numbers to swing the election?

Beyond the third parties and independent campaigns, there are also ongoing “draft” movements, as supporters of past candidates such as Al Gore and Ralph Nader try to build coalitions to convince these former politicians to run again. Additionally, some Libertarians are trying to convince Ron Paul to run on their ticket again, and many Greens still want Ralph Nader to lead their party in the election.

While many journalists and commentators will find it hard to resist the urge to start dreaming of “Obama vs. Huckabee," "Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain," or a similar race this fall, after only a few early primaries, the look of the election come autumn is still quite unclear. In fact, it is most unclear for the supporters of third party and independent candidates, as they do not have the giant spotlight of the mass media following their progress. Many of these candidates would be happy to have even the tiniest percentage of the publicity granted to the lowest tier of the major candidates during the past few months.

With all of the focus on Obama, Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, McCain, Huckabee, John Edwards and Mitt Romney, it really isn’t easy being Green, Libertarian, or a member of the Constitution Party. Still, their supporters are working to influence the election in a number of ways, and could end up significantly changing the look of the race before the final few months of the campaign in summer and fall. With more than 9 months until the election, everyone is still fighting for his or her chance, whether large or small.